


mirror man

by untrustworthyglitch



Series: symbiosis [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Humor, M/M, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 14:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12037488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untrustworthyglitch/pseuds/untrustworthyglitch
Summary: Mark's reflection grins at him with too many teeth and whispers to him condescendingly when he tries to brush his teeth. That's fine, though. He's used to it at this point. He's not even bothered when the reflection demon (his name is Dark, apparently) takes up residence in his head. It's all fine. What's he gonna do, whisper Mark to death?It's a bit concerning when he actually starts to possess Mark, though.It's even more concerning when Dark meets the demon that possesses Mark's dear friend Jack.What even is Mark's life, honestly.





	mirror man

**Author's Note:**

> hi! first time trying something for this fandom (first time writing in a very long time, too) but i like it, so here ya go! i did my best with the formatting so hopefully it's not all fucky. some advice: don't put a ton of italics into your work. bad idea. don't do it.
> 
> probably going to be the first part in a series, but is a standalone for now as i haven't actually written anything else yet
> 
> like it? have comments? wanna chat? head on down to untrustworthyglitch.tumblr.com and say hey! i'm friendly and i like capslock and using the :D face

Five-year-old Mark stared into the mirror and choked on terror when the reflection waved back.

Five-year-old Mark cried until his mother let him spend the night in her bed, but she shook her head and insisted that his reflection was perfectly normal even as the reflection grinned at the terror on Mark’s face.

Five-year-old Mark stood on shaky knees in front of the bathroom mirror and gripped the countertop tightly with sweaty hands until he worked up the courage to stutter out, “Who are you?”

An ancient evil leaned toward the fragile glass of the mirror that separated it from the boy. It did not speak. It did not want to startle the boy by speaking to him with the voice that had driven countless men to madness, had razed entire kingdoms, had started and finished wars in dimensions the human mind could not even begin to comprehend.

Five-year-old Mark did not look in mirrors anymore.

 

Mark’s alarm clock was a piece of shit, and he was running very late.

He had a total of five minutes to get ready, and that was including commute. Somehow he’d managed to stumble around his bedroom while in a state of half-asleep panic long enough to find clothes that were objectively clean and to put on deodorant, as well as shove his feet into his shoes without taking the time to actually tie them. The last thing he needed to do was brush his teeth.

Mark didn’t pay much attention to his reflection. It was just a fact of life by that point. The Earth was round, the sky was blue, and Mark’s reflection was probably a demon from another dimension that no one else could seem to see. No biggie.

“Your hair looks terrible,” his reflection said, and Mark screamed.

“What the fuck,” he said, meeting his reflection’s eyes for the first time in a very long time.

“Ah, so now you’ll look at me,” the reflection said, self-satisfied grin fixed firmly in place.

“You’ve never talked before!” Mark said shrilly, ignoring the fact that he was screaming at the bathroom mirror in favor of the fact that the bathroom mirror was _talking back._

“I didn’t have anything to say before,” his reflection informed him. He looked at Mark with pure contempt, as though it had just rained heavily and Mark was a worm drowning on the blacktop. It made Mark’s skin crawl.

“You shouldn’t have anything to say ever!” Mark squeaked. If he wasn’t too busy being terrified, he’d have been ashamed at how high his voice had gone. “You’re my reflection!”

The reflection smiled, slow and confident. “Am I?”

Mark opened his mouth, but couldn’t find words. The portion of his brain usually dedicated to speaking was busy trying to cope with a _talking reflection,_ and the part in charge of higher brain functions was helping out. The only scrap of active thinking fully functioning was the part continuously repeating _“what the fuck”_ on loop.

“You’re late,” the reflection reminded him, and some part of Mark’s brain kicked back into working order. He turned on his heel and fled, teeth unbrushed.

 

Mark somehow made it to school on time, though he had to sprint through the halls to beat the bell. The morning went by in a haze. He probably went to class and listened to teachers drone on and spoke to his friends, but the entire time he was on autopilot. Nothing could reach him through the fog of shock at having his reflection speak to him.

Halfway through the school day, Mark went to the bathroom. He avoided the mirror, as per usual, and almost made it out before his reflection ruined things.

“You know, you can’t ignore me forever,” it said. Mark looked into the mirror in dismay. Sure enough, there he was, identical to Mark in every way. The only difference was the way the reflection carried himself. Where Mark was on the shy side, awkward in his teenage-ness, his reflection was suave and confident. He leaned against the edge of the mirror like he owned it and crossed his arms over his chest, one eyebrow raised in judgement.

“I can damn well try,” Mark whispered firmly. The bathroom was deserted, but he really did not want anyone to overhear.

“A failed endeavor,” his reflection told him, and began examining his nails cooly.

“We’ll see,” Mark muttered, and went back to class.

Nearly a month went by. School was boring, college paperwork was filed, and Mark graduated. He resolutely did not acknowledge mirrors in any way. Things were going smoothly.

That is, until Mark managed to walk right in front of a car, whose driver either forgot where the brake was or simply didn’t care.

Mark didn’t even register impact. One second he was on the sidewalk, laughing and joking around with his pals, and the next everything was very dark. Dimly he could feel pressure on his ribcage, but in such a distant way that it didn’t matter. He felt oddly weightless. It was kinda nice.

“Get up,” someone said. It took a second, but eventually Mark recognized the voice as his reflection, back again to taunt him. Mark almost felt annoyed, but the emotion slipped away like so much smoke. Nothing was really tangible, not while it was so dark and warm and floaty.

“Mark,” the reflection said, low and urgent. “Mark, you’ve got to get up.”

Mark somehow found the conviction to speak. “Nope.”

“Yes,” the reflection countered, and there was a bright burst of pain in Mark’s back, right between the shoulder blades. He flinched.

“No,” he said again, more firmly this time. 

“Wake up,” his reflection ordered, but how could his reflection be talking to him if there wasn’t a mirror nearby? There wasn’t anything nearby. Everything was so dark and empty and nice. Mark sighed and settled himself more comfortably into the warm darkness, but an electric burst of pain shot through his temples, and he could barely stifle a shout.

“Mark, get up,” the reflection said, but he really didn’t want to. He opened his mouth to say so, but the pain came back, this time in his chest. It felt like fire and lightning and nails and needles, and Mark sucked in a deep breath and opened his eyes.

He blinked blearily. Red and blue lights flashed somewhere very close by, and slowly sound began to filter in. Sirens. A car alarm. Screaming.

“Don’t move,” a man ordered, and hey, there was a man bending over Mark. And since when was Mark on the ground? The asphalt was hard and damp beneath his back. His head pounded. He hurt all over.

“What happened?” he tried to say, but only succeeded in groaning. The man shushed him, and Mark figured that was as good a time as any to go back to sleep, so he did.

 

“You were hit by a car. Idiot,” Mark’s reflection told him when he was finally allowed to go to the bathroom by himself. He’d spent quite a while in the company of various doctors and nurses and distressed friends, but the verdict was all the same. Mark was very banged up and very bruised, but his heart would probably continue to beat for a while yet.

“It’s not like I planned it,” Mark muttered, quietly so that his mother in the next room wouldn’t hear. He turned on the tap to create a little white noise.

The reflection snorted derisively. “I doubt you could have planned something like that. It was perfect. You simply waltzed in front of the car with no hesitation.”

“How do you know?” Mark whispered harshly. “You weren’t there.”

“I was,” said the reflection, rolling his eyes. He didn’t seem injured at all. Mark was black and blue from head to toe, covered in bandages and a handful of stitches, but his reflection was the picture of health. 

“How?” Mark asked, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

“I’m part of you, Mark. Where you go, I go.” The reflection said it like it was obvious, and maybe it was, but Mark hadn’t really considered the possibility of his reflection existing outside of a mirror until that point. 

“What are you?” Mark asked. He’d never asked before. He’d assumed the reflection was some sort of demon, or maybe just a very vivid hallucination, but right now he needed to know for sure.

“I’m Dark,” the reflection said simply, and shrugged before vanishing to be replaced by Mark’s actual, beat-up reflection. Mark blinked and for once his reflection blinked back instead of saying something cruel. 

_“You look like hell, by the way,”_ whispered the voice of his reflection, but this time from inside his mind. 

Mark decided he should listen to the doctors and lay down for a bit.

 

 _“Your concussion is slightly worse than the doctors thought,”_ the voice in the back of Mark’s head informed him. He blinked blearily at the ceiling. He’d fallen asleep sometime in the early hours of the morning, aching and sore, and had no grasp of what time it might be now. Watery sunlight streamed through the window and somewhere nearby a flock of birds chittered happily, so it was safe to assume it was vaguely morning, but he was lost beyond that.

 _“It’s strange in here,”_ the voice muttered. “Muddled.”

“I got hit by a car,” Mark groaned, annoyed.

 _“I remember,”_ groused the voice. 

Mark sighed and tried to nestle deeper into the blankets, but it wasn’t very comfortable. The hospital had insisted he stay overnight, just to make sure he wasn’t going to drop dead. Hospital sheets were on the low end of the spectrum when it came to softness. The pillow was more like a sack of rocks. It was a wonder he’d fallen asleep in the first place.

 _“Don’t ignore me,”_ the voice said, soft and firm. There was something off about the way it spoke. It had Mark’s voice, but the tone and inflection was all off. It was formal, slow, sure of itself. This voice dripped with confidence and hummed with power.

“I’m tired,” Mark whined. “I got hit by a car yesterday.”

 _“You’re repeating yourself,”_ said the voice.

“Yeah, I know,” Mark muttered. 

_“Then stop,”_ the voice said.

“I liked you better as a reflection,” Mark said darkly, and the voice hummed in distaste before falling silent.

 

Life went on. Mark healed. The voice in his head didn’t go anywhere.

On one hand, it was kinda nice. He could look in mirrors without flinching. His reflection stayed his reflection. It didn’t grin at him or complain about his looks or act condescending. Instead he was able to look himself in the eye every morning and see the bags under his eyes and the fading bruises and feel like he was a real person. 

On the other hand, he now had to deal with the goading and complaints full-time. The reflection seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the back of his head, and was not going to live in silence. Where before he could have simply avoided reflective surfaces, he now had to live with the voice around the clock.

 _“You can call me Dark,”_ the voice whispered late one night, when a thunderstorm threatened to tear the roof off the house. Mark was lying awake on top of his sheets and listening to the wind beating against the windows. Tiny pinpricks of hail clattered on the glass, and every now and again the wind would gust and the house would creak.

 _“I can hear you thinking about me, you know,”_ the voice told him. _“You can call me by a name.”_

“Dark?” Mark breathed, so softly that it was nearly indistinguishable from the howling wind.

 _“That’s it,”_ Dark said. He fell silent, and Mark went back to listening to the roll of thunder.

 

Mark went to college. Mark dropped out of college.

Mark started making YouTube videos. Mark kept making YouTube videos.

 _“This is phenomenal,”_ Dark said from the back of Mark’s head when Mark hit one hundred subscribers. Mark swelled with pride. Yeah, it really was.

 _“You can gain a following, and then we can do anything,”_ Dark said, and that was slightly worrying, but Mark let it slide.

Mark kept gaining subscribers and Dark kept whispering about using them to accomplish… something. Mark wasn’t really sure what, exactly, Dark wanted to do with a sphere of influence. Whenever Mark thought too long about popularity or the size of his audience, Dark got a little excited. That probably should have been a red flag, but he let it slide.

The first time Mark actually felt real fear regarding Dark was also the first time he died. Looking back, he supposed he should have been a little more careful, but Mark Fischbach was never the most cautious person, and besides, what could possibly have gone wrong?

Everything went wrong.

Things started out okay. He and some friends got bored and decided that hey, there was a perfectly good ravine with some really cool glacial boulders nearby, why not climb some? Rock climbing is great exercise, after all. And it’s not like they would get hurt or anything.

Mark’s foot slipped and he tumbled down, down, down.

The impact rattled his bones and knocked the air from his lungs, but strangely it didn’t hurt. He laid there, crumpled on the floor of the ravine, and blinked. Above him, the sun shone brightly, and he could hear his friends screaming as they scrambled down the rocks, but he couldn’t call out to them. He couldn’t move. He wasn’t breathing.

Mark took a shuddering breath and cleared his throat, but something was very, very wrong. He wasn’t the one in control.

“Mark!” one of his friends shouted, but Mark couldn’t hear which one over the tinny ringing in his ears. Everything was distant, hazy. He tried to look up. He couldn’t.

“I’m… fine,” Mark said, voice gritty and low. He tried to scream, but his throat wouldn’t cooperate. He was not the pilot of his own body.

“Jesus,” someone said, and Mark thought that was Tyler. He tried to look up, but nothing happened.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” someone else said. Wade? Or maybe Bob? He couldn’t tell. His head hurt.

“No need. I’m fine,” Mark ground out. His voice sounded as though it had been a long time since it had been used. He coughed, chest rising and falling convulsively, but there was none of the usual relief that came with a lungful of fresh air. He rolled his neck and made to stand up, but wobbled. Tyler caught him by the elbow and hauled him to his feet.

Mark tried to yell for help, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

“That was quite a fall,” Wade said. The four of them gazed up the side of the ravine, past huge boulders and thick tree trunks. Thirty feet up, Tyler’s backpack sat abandoned on the rock where he’d dropped it in his haste to get to Mark.

“I don’t even know how you’re standing, dude,” Bob said.

 _Me neither,_ Mark thought, and his body chuckled. 

“I’m resilient,” Mark said out loud.

“I guess,” Tyler laughed, and that was that. Slowly, the three of them helped Mark stumble his way to the mouth of the ravine. He walked on shaky legs like a newborn foal, all wobbly knees and unsure steps, but somehow managed to make it back to the car. The entire time Mark did his best to scream, to move, to _breathe,_ but someone else was in charge.

“I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow,” Wade said when they were finally settled in the car. Tyler, behind the wheel, hummed in agreement and turned the key in the ignition. Bob leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. Mark’s body reclined lazily in the backseat, head back and eyes shut in a facsimile of rest. Inside, Mark was still shouting.

 _“Calm down,”_ whispered Dark’s voice. _“I can’t keep control forever. It is, after all, your body.”_

 _“I’m not breathing. My heart isn’t beating. I’m_ dead,” Mark shouted back. He felt rather than heard Dark chuckle.

 _“For now,”_ Dark said.

 _“What the fuck does that mean?”_ Mark demanded. 

_“This,”_ Dark whispered. He sat up, rolled his neck, and if Mark could have he would have shrieked from the sudden pain. Every bone, every cell, every atom was alight with a pain like he’d never experienced. He was on fire and being electrocuted and being flayed alive all at once. He wanted to write, to scream, but he wasn’t in control of his own body.

And then all at once, he was in control again, and the pain was gone.

Mark lurched, dragging air into dead lungs in quick pained gasps. His heart thumped back to life in his aching chest. He leaned forward and put his head between his knees in an effort to not throw up. In the back of his head, he thought he heard Dark chuckle.

“You okay?” Bob asked, concerned.

Mark cleared his throat and croaked, “Yeah, fine.”

“You sure?” Tyler said, glancing at Mark in the rearview mirror. “We can still go to the hospital.”

“No, I’m okay,” Mark assured them, and spent the rest of the ride focusing on pulling air into and out of his lungs. 

When they finally pulled into Mark’s driveway it took him ages to convince them that he was fully, completely okay, but they eventually released him to the silence of his empty house. He stumbled to the front door on aching legs and all but collapsed onto the couch. 

“So what happened earlier?” he said to the empty room.

Dark didn’t hesitate to respond. _“You died. I thought that was obvious.”_

“Then why aren’t I dead now?” Mark demanded. God, his head hurt.

 _“I needed you to stay alive,”_ Dark whispered, voice smooth and black as smoke. He said it like it was obvious. Of course Mark would survive, despite having no heartbeat or breathing pattern for over fifteen minutes. He would survive because Dark needed him to. Obviously.

“So I lived because you took over?”

Dark hummed thoughtfully and went silent. Mark listened to the ringing in his ears and the gentle sound of the air conditioner and his own heartbeat. Things were very peaceful in his darkening living room. He was almost surprised when Dark broke the silence.

_“Good survival mechanism, isn’t it?”_

Mark couldn’t help but agree.

 

Mark gritted his teeth and tried his best not to start throwing punches.

“C’mon,” the asshole taunted. “Do something about it.”

If the guy wasn’t careful, Mark was going to take him up on that offer. And that wouldn’t end well, considering that Mark had a good bit of muscle mass and a whole lot of smarts that this idiot was sorely lacking.

“Let it go, man,” Mark said in a last ditch effort to reach some kind of peace.

“Hell no! You don’t just hit on my girl and get away with it!” the man shouted, brandishing his beer aggressively. The woman who was apparently “his girl” grimaced. Ten minutes ago, she’d been smiling, laughing at Mark’s jokes. Then Mr. Short-Pale-and-Ugly decided to get involved and things went rapidly downhill.

“Babe, can we just leave?” the lady pleaded. She tried to put a placating hand on the guy’s shoulder, but he shrugged her off.

“Not until this asshole apologizes!” he insisted. Mark could smell the alcohol on his breath, even over the smell rain on the hot asphalt. When the shouting started, they’d been asked to leave the bar. Somewhere inside Mark’s friends were paying their tabs and would be hopefully emerging soon to save him from this godawful situation. Maybe Mr. Jackass would back off when Mark had reinforcements.

“Look, dude,” Mark said, putting his hands up. “She started talking to me. I didn’t know you were together. I never would have tried anything, I swear.”

“You’re saying my girl tried cheating on me?” the guy roared, enraged. He threw his bottle to the ground and took a wobbly step forward. Mark backed up.

“No, no,” he tried insisting, but Drunk McDouchebag took that as his signal to swing.

Mark saw stars. Drunk as he was, Idiot Jackass packed a mean punch. Mark reeled and stumbled, only barely able to catch himself on the wet brick of the bar. The sharp taste of blood filled his mouth. He put a hand up to his lip and felt wetness.

Somewhere, something shifted. One second Mark was blinking black spots out of his eyes and spitting out a mouthful of his own blood. The next, he wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t get his lungs to cooperate. 

“Big mistake,” Mark’s mouth said of its own accord, and Mark realized through the daze that he was no longer in control.

“What did you say?” Dickbag Redneck jeered, and then he made his biggest mistake of all. He called Mark a racial slur.

Dark didn’t give any outward indication of having heard. He simply straightened up to his full height and rolled his neck, pausing only long enough to take a steadying breath before he full-on roundhouse kicked Racist Motherfucker right in the face.

If Mark could have, he probably would have cheered.

Mrs. Asshole screamed and somewhere someone else shouted for someone to call the cops, but all Mark paid attention to was the feeling of grim satisfaction when Jackass groaned and spat a few teeth into a puddle on the pavement.

“Mark, what the hell,” Wade said from the doorway of the bar. Dark turned to look at him, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“It’s taken care of,” he said lowly, and turned to leave. When he passed the asshole groaning on the ground, he paused and looked down his nose at him. “Learn when you’re outmatched.”

Dark allowed Wade and Bob to lead him down the street, but didn’t say a word. Rather, he stuck his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes straight ahead, refusing to answer the others’ increasingly worried questions.

“Mark, stop,” Wade eventually said, and grabbed Dark by the shoulder. There was a brief moment of pure and absolute nothingness, and then Mark was back in control, dragging air into lifeless lungs with a pained gasp and sinking to his knees on the sidewalk.

“Mark?” Bob asked. He knelt next to where Mark sat with his head between his knees, struggling to breathe.

“Yeah,” Mark gasped out. Instinct said to keep breathing at all costs, but he could feel a scream building in his ribcage, just waiting on him to catch his breath before it would fight its way out. He worried that once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“What happened back there?” Bob asked, soft and gentle, concerned.

“I dunno,” Mark whispered. It was true. Last time he’d been possessed by the literal demon living in the back of his head, he’d just died. There wasn’t much room for freaking out. Now that he knew exactly what was happening, now that he knew exactly how helpless he was in his own skin, there was nothing left but panic.

“Are you okay?” Wade asked. He put a hand on Mark’s shoulder, and Mark flinched.

“No,” he said honestly, and swallowed back the urge to throw up.

“How can we help?” Bob asked.

“I don’t know if you can,” Mark whispered, too softly for either of his friends to hear.

“You’re right. They can’t,” Dark chuckled, and Mark bit down hard on his knuckles to keep the scream in.

“C’mon, Mark, let’s get you home,” Wade suggested, and Mark allowed himself to be led down the street. Gentle rain fell from distant clouds and streetlights hummed softly, but all Mark could pay attention to was the black cloud that could, at any moment, envelop him.

 

Mark tried his best to forget the fact that he was constantly at the risk of being possessed, and the best way to do that was to throw himself into work with full force. He continued making YouTube videos and his subscriber count continued to grow. Somewhere along the lines, he ended up successful.

“You know, it’s kinda hard to make myself look presentable when I don’t have a real reflection,” Mark complained one morning as he blindly ran his hand through his hair.

“You’ve never complained before,” Dark replied easily, regarding Mark with pure condescension.

“Yeah, well, I can usually just use the viewfinder on my camera. But right now it’s really inconvenient. I need to look good for this meeting.”

“Right,” Dark said, rolling his eyes. “You’re _the_ Markiplier. Your meeting is the single most important thing in my life.”

“Uncalled for,” Mark muttered, but resigned himself to fixing his hair in the front camera of his phone anyway. He turned to go, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Dark’s outline flicker and a second later felt him settle back into his mind. Sometimes Mark wondered what, exactly, Dark was. He was more than a reflection and more than a voice in Mark’s head, but beyond that, Mark didn’t know, and Dark wasn’t exactly forthcoming.

The meeting was not the most important thing in their lives, but it went smoothly anyway, and Mark was able to return home in time to spend a good half hour on his phone before he needed to start editing videos. YouTube, though technically his job, was a great way to waste time with some simple entertainment.

One video led to another which led to another, and eventually Mark found himself down the rabbit’s hole that was gaming content. 

“Listen to this guy,” he said aloud, though he could have gotten Dark’s attention with a mere thought.

 _“Loud,”_ Dark muttered distastefully.

“Irish,” Mark added. Guy had some good content. Plus, he’d won that shoutout thing Felix did, so he must have been pretty cool. Mark subscribed and followed him on Twitter before setting his phone on the table and heading off to edit some content.

 

“I’d love to collab with Markiplier someday,” Jack said to the camera, smile bright. Mark rolled his eyes because yeah, sure, he was the end-all-be-all of YouTube collabs. Whatever, Jack.

“I just don’t know how to make that happen,” Jack said, and moved on to the next topic. Mark paused the video. Maybe Jack didn’t know how to make that happen, but Mark sure did. He typed a quick message and didn’t even ask Dark to proofread before he hit send.

The reply was quick and enthusiastic, and Mark found himself in possession of another friend.

 

“I’m thinking of moving to LA,” Mark said one night, when he’d finally turned off the computer and settled into bed.

 _“And you’re telling me this, why?”_ Dark muttered.

They’d been on increasingly polite speaking terms since the second possession incident. Every now and again Mark would ask Dark for advice, or Dark would comment dryly on something Mark was doing wrong in his life. Dark would show up in the mirror to berate Mark for his appearance, and Mark would roll his eyes and turn the lights off so Dark wasn’t visible anymore. Was it healthy? Nope. Did it work for them? Sure as hell did.

“I dunno.” Mark punched the pillow in an effort to make it more comfortable, but it had little effect. “I just thought you should know.”

 _“You want me to tell you whether it’s a good idea or not,”_ Dark said.

“I suppose,” Mark replied. 

Dark took a minute before responding. _“I think it’s brilliant, from a purely ambitious standpoint.”_

Mark rolled over. He wasn’t sure whether that was the answer he wanted or not.

 

LA was hot, first and foremost. It was hot and dry and so very distinctly Not Ohio that Mark almost regretted the decision to move. Even so, he got himself an apartment and did his best to settle in. He even bought an ornate mirror to hang above the bathroom sink, so Dark could lean regally against the frame when Mark brushed his teeth every morning.

“Don’t forget your wallet this time,” Dark grumbled.

Mark spat toothpaste into the sink and glared at his reflection. “I’m not gonna forget my wallet this time.”

“You forgot it last time,” Dark pointed out. “It could happen again.”

“It won’t,” Mark said. He patted the back pocket of his jeans. Yep, still there.

“You’d forget your own head if I wasn’t here to remind you,” Dark said. Mark flipped him off and turned off the bathroom light. Dark, rendered mostly invisible by the lack of light, grumbled in annoyance and slipped back into Mark’s head.

“We’re gonna go have fun at a convention, now,” Mark said loudly, and had to stifle a laugh when Dark groaned.

 _“I hate you,”_ Dark muttered, and then Mark did laugh.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “We’re gonna see our friends!”

 _“Correction: you’re going to see your friends,”_ Dark said.

Mark pouted. “Aw, Dark, don’t be like that!”

Dark didn’t answer, so Mark shrugged and headed out to the convention center without the voice in his head for company. The place was absolutely packed. People milled about the main floor in clumps with no clear direction and he had to weave his way through crowds to get anywhere, but that was fine. He was going to get to see his friends today, including Jack, whom he’d yet to actually meet in person.

Mark’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He leaned against a wall and pulled it out, smirking when he saw it was a message from Jack sent to the group message between his YouTube friends.

 _where the fuck are you guys,_ Jack had written.

 _in the clusterfuck,_ Felix sent.

 _Same,_ Mark typed, and started scanning the crowd. He didn’t see either of them until Dark coughed pointedly and took control just long enough to get Mark to focus in on where Felix was standing in the crowd. Mark tried waving to get his attention, but it didn’t work. He sighed and typed out a message

_Felix, walk straight forward and you’ll see me._

Mark watched Felix glance down at his phone and then begin walking directly forward. Eventually he recognized Mark and quickened his pace. 

_how does that help me,_ Jack complained, and Mark didn’t have time to formulate a response before Felix reached him.

“Jesus, there are a lot of people here,” Felix said, loudly to be heard over the crowd. Mark nodded and in the back of his head Dark agreed wholeheartedly. It was very claustrophobic.

“Jack is a goner,” Mark said, and Felix laughed.

“Hey, fuck you guys.” Mark looked up and there was Jack after all, seemingly having found his way through the crowd without their help. He was a little shorter than Mark expected him to be, but overall looked exactly the same as he did on camera. Mark grinned.

“Jack!” he shouted, and pulled him into a hug.

The instant their skin came into contact, the air was pulled from Mark’s lungs. 

_“MARK,”_ Dark shouted, so loud it physically hurt. Mark winced and pulled back from the hug. It was all he could do to stay upright, with the force with which Dark was attempting to gain control of his body. It was like a feral dog had been presented with a small prey animal and was determined to beat itself bloody against the bars of its cage in an effort to get at it. 

“Uh, hey, I’ll be right back,” Mark said distantly, and fled to the nearest bathroom. Whatever deities existed must have been smiling on him, because not only was it a single, but it was miraculously unoccupied.

Mark locked the door and leaned heavily against the sink, breathing heavily as though he’d just finished sprinting a marathon. He dug his thumbs into his temples in an attempt to alleviate the headache that was brewing. It didn’t help.

“Go back out there right now,” Dark ordered from the mirror. Mark looked up and was shocked at what he saw. Dark, always so composed and suave, was also breathing heavily, face flushed and eyes wild. His pupils were blown wide, giving the impression that his eyes were entirely black.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mark asked him.

Dark ran a hand through his hair, staring at Mark with something like urgency. “Didn’t you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Mark said, though he had a strong feeling he already knew.

“When you hugged Jack,” Dark said, and he’d never been so agitated as he was in that moment. “That electricity.” 

“I felt it,” Mark admitted.

“Don’t you know what that _means,”_ Dark said, voice edged with desperation. His breathing was erratic and he wasn’t bothering to get it under control. Some part of his mask of indifference and condescension was cracked, and distantly Mark worried at the implications.

“I don’t, actually,” he said, crossing his arms.

“It _means,”_ Dark said, and paused to inhale deeply. “Jack’s like us.”

“Like us?” Mark parroted.

“Yes, you idiot, like us. There’s something like me living in him, and you’re going back out there _right now_ to find out what.”

“I can’t just go right back out there!” Mark protested. “I ran in here like there was something wrong with me! They both probably think I’m crazy!”

Dark didn’t respond. Rather, there was that horrifyingly familiar sensation of weightlessness somewhere in Mark’s spine, and then Mark was riding shotgun in his own body. He tried shouting indignantly, but Dark kept a firm grip on the controls, and marched them right out of the bathroom and towards the concerned look on Mark’s friends’ faces.

“You okay?” Felix asked, eyebrow raised. 

Dark didn’t even attempt to respond. He swiftly relinquished control and left Mark, coughing, to fend for himself. 

_You really need to remember to breathe when you do that,_ Mark thought aggressively in Dark’s general direction, but there was no reaction. His entire being seemed concentrated on focusing on Jack’s every move, which made it a little difficult for Mark to gather enough autonomy to form a sentence.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he eventually said, dismissively. “Thought I was gonna throw up or something.”

“Nervous?” Felix teased.

“I sure as hell am,” Jack said, and they laughed. Mark slowly forgot about the way Dark had sounded earlier, all desperation and frantic determination. The three of them walked the floor and took selfies and recorded a few minutes of vlog and just generally had a great time together. The initial awkwardness of having never met in person wore off, and Mark was able to settle into a familiar pattern of joking and laughing with his two friends.

“If you see a bathroom, lemme know,” Felix said about halfway through the morning. It didn’t take them long to find one, but it would have taken about a year to get through the line. It was the same at the next one. And the next. And the next.

“We could leave and get lunch and find a bathroom somewhere less crowded,” Mark suggested.

“Genius!” Felix said, and the three of them walked outside into the hot sun.

It didn’t take long to find a restaurant, but it did take a while to find one that was far enough from the convention center to not be packed to the brim with con-goers. Mark didn’t mind the walk. The sun was warm and the breeze was refreshing and he had two great friends here with him. Life was good.

The only thing that detracted from Mark’s general feeling of pure joy was the way Dark kept close attention on Jack, as though watching for any and every indication that whatever they’d sensed earlier was real.

“Hey, that place is mostly empty!” Mark pointed out. The place in question was on the far side of rundown, with two shabby patio tables sitting outside streaky windows that afforded a view of the dimly lit interior. Three people sat at one booth in the corner, picking at what were probably burgers under the watchful eye of the old man at the counter. A fluorescent bulb flickered weakly overhead.

“I think there’s a reason,” Felix replied, eyeing the diner warily.

“It probably has an empty bathroom,” Jack reminded him, and Felix took it upon himself to lead the way into the restaurant. From the instant Mark set foot in the door, the old man’s eyes were on them. It made his skin crawl, and Dark took a small percentage of his attention from Jack to glare in the man’s general direction.

“Bathroom is for paying customers only,” the old man croaked, glaring.

“We’ll be paying for something in a minute,” Jack assured him with a forced smile. 

As soon as the door the the bathroom was shut, the three turned and gave each other a look that very clearly stated that they needed to leave this creepy little diner as quickly as possible.

“Be right out,” Felix said before giving them a peace sign and disappearing into the one stall. Mark leaned against the dirty tile wall and stared into the mirror. There was Dark, just like he always was, frown fixed firmly in place and eyes hollow. He stared at Mark intensely and opened his mouth to say something, but cut off with a gasp when Jack stepped in front of the mirror.

The reflection was… off. At first glance, he looked exactly like Jack, except that Jack was checking his phone and the reflection was very decidedly _not._ The closer Mark looked, the more he noticed, and the more he wished he didn’t. The reflection had black plugs in ears that tapered off toward the end, like some darker version of an elf’s. His eyes were dark but shone radioactive green. Blood dripped freely from an open wound on his neck that looked both old and fresh at the same time. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but seemed to second guess himself. Instead he leaned toward the glass of the mirror intently, eyes hungry and wild. Mark’s jaw went slack when the reflection reached one pale finger out and tapped the mirror, as though trying to get Jack’s attention.

Jack looked up, made eye contact with the reflection, rolled his eyes, and went back to his phone.

“What the fuck,” Mark breathed.

“Huh?” Jack said, still not looking up. “Sorry, important text.”

“Jack, your reflection,” Mark said, still blinking at the mirror. Jack’s reflection turned his attention to Mark then, and he flickered, as though he was being seen through a bad connection. His eyes, radioactive green, seemed to bore straight through Mark.

“My reflection?” Jack asked, voice tight. He looked up and into the mirror. All color seemed to drain from his face when he said, “What about my reflection?”

“I can see him,” Mark insisted.

“You can see him,” Jack parroted. He blinked at Mark. He glanced at the mirror, where the reflection blinked back.

“I can see him,” Mark repeated.

“How?” Jack whispered, eyes wide. “No one can see him.”

“Can--can you see my reflection?” Mark asked. Both Jack and Jack’s reflection turned their attention to Dark, who up until that point had been mostly content to simply observe. When Jack’s reflection caught sight of Dark, his breath caught, and the grin that stretched across his face was far too brutal and far too wide to be human.

“Of course he can see me,” Dark said, voice steady despite the way his breathing was not.

“Holy fuck,” Jack breathed.

“Hello there,” Jack’s reflection said. His voice was rough, ruined, and sounded oddly electronic. It made Mark’s skin crawl. 

Dark didn’t respond. He merely looked the reflection up and down with a shuttered expression, as though trying to get a feel for the type of being he was being faced with. Jack’s reflection held out a hand for a handshake, but halfway there he flickered out of existence again, like a glitch in a video.

“I’m Anti,” Jack’s reflection said, mouth stretched around that wide, horrible grin.

“Dark,” Dark replied, and shook his hand.

Mark felt the contact in a sharp burst of pain somewhere behind his eyes, bursting bright enough that he had to shut them tightly against the onslaught. He felt that familiar sensation of tugging on his spine, as though Dark was trying to take control of him, but this time was different. This time, it was more push than pull. This time, Dark was jumping off rather than jumping in.

Mark’s eyes flew open at the sudden sensation of pure, resounding emptiness. He clutched the grimy counter for dear life as he took a shaky breath. It was as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but a weight he hadn’t even known he was bearing. Color seemed brighter. Sensation seemed fuller.

“Jesus,” Jack groaned from the floor, where he’d apparently collapsed. Mark put out a hand to help him up, but was secretly thankful when Jack turned out to not need it. He didn’t think he’d have been able to help anyway.

“What are you two whispering about?” Felix asked suddenly, and Mark jumped.

“N-nothing,” he said, tongue weirdly heavy in his mouth. Felix rolled his eyes and washed his hands quickly before leading them back into the sketchy little diner. Mark stumbled over his own feet several times on the way. He felt heavy and weightless, blinded and hyperaware.

“I’m literally only getting a drink here,” Felix said, and strolled up to the counter. Mark watched him interact with the angry old man in silence. Jack, not two feet away, didn’t make an effort to say anything.

“Are you okay?” Felix asked when he returned, drink in hand. The three of them strolled back into the midafternoon sun. Mark squinted against the sun’s brightness and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, but the words didn’t sound quite right. It was as if someone else were talking twenty feet away. Distant. Hollow.

“I’m good,” Jack seconded. 

“If you say so,” Felix said, and they continued on in what could have been perceived as amicable silence. 

 

Mark stumbled his way through the rest of the day, eternally thankful that he didn’t have to do any panels or signings until the following morning. He felt deeply, fundamentally off, as though some integral part of his structure was missing. He stumbled over his words. He lost the thread of conversations, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Every time he passed a mirror, he stared into his own eyes and saw nothing but his own confusion. 

Finally, finally, finally the sun started to dip below the horizon, and Mark was able to make some excuse about being exhausted as a way to head home. He waved off Tyler’s protests that they’d planned to go out as a group that evening and claimed to have a migraine brewing. He did his best to not feel guilty when Ethan pouted exaggeratedly at him. 

“Hey, Mark?” Jack asked, catching Mark by the elbow on his way to the door. Where that morning the touch had been painfully electric, it now felt only like dry skin, plain and human.

“Yeah?” he said, already looking forward to collapsing into bed and sleeping this day off.

“We should probably have a conversation, don’t you think?” Jack said quietly, and Mark nodded. Yeah, they should probably talk about the demons that had, until very recently, lived in their heads.

Jack turned back to the group of their gathered friends and made some bullshit excuse about jetlag, and Mark valiantly offered to drive him back to his hotel, since he was leaving already. Goodbyes were said and hugs were given, and Mark and Jack made their way to where Mark had parked his car.

“So,” Mark said, sliding behind the wheel. “Talk while we drive?”

“Works for me,” Jack replied. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “So. You’re possessed too.”

Mark barked a harsh laugh, surprised at the bluntness. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“How long?” Jack asked.

“Long as I can remember,” Mark replied, eyes fixed firmly on the road. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t a great idea to try driving, when he could barely keep from tripping over his own feet. 

“Has it always been in the mirror?” Jack pressed.

Mark sighed and gave in, telling the whole story. “Yeah, it started out that way. No one else could see him, of course, so I just didn’t look in mirrors for the first eighteen years of my life and everything was fine. But then he ended up in my head, which was a whole other thing altogether. He could, like, take control of my body and everything. It wasn’t fun.”

“Jesus,” Jack breathed.

“That’s not even the worst part, though,” Mark continued. “I died. I literally, actually died. I was like nineteen, maybe twenty, and I fell down the side of a ravine. When I hit the bottom, I didn’t even pass out, but I couldn’t move. I wasn’t breathing. I thought I was dead for sure. But then I sat up and started talking to my friends, except it wasn’t me doing the talking. It was him.”

Jack mumbled something that was probably an expletive, but Mark was already deep into his backstory, and kept right on talking.

“After that, things were okay. We could talk to each other, in my head or in the mirror. Dark--his name’s Dark, by the way--was an alright guy, I guess. He only ever possessed me one other time, and that was to beat up a drunk asshole for me, so that’s forgivable in some weird way. Other than that he was just there, the demon in my head, making snide comments and glaring at me.”

“Anti… isn’t like that,” Jack said slowly, and Mark waved a hand for him to go on. “He first showed up when I was younger, like in my teens. At first, I thought I was just going crazy, because here was my reflection, grinning at me and laughing like something I was doing was hilarious. He stayed mostly harmless for a little while but then… well.”

Jack trailed off, and Mark risked a glance in his direction. He had a hand wrapped loosely around his own throat and his eyes were distant, staring off into the setting sun.

“Jack?” Mark prompted.

Jack shook his head as tough to clear it, and when he spoke it was flat, mechanical. “He took control of my body, like you said yours can. I tried screaming, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t move. And then he grabbed the knife.”

Mark felt a cold wash of horror.

“He tried to make me slice my own throat,” Jack said, voice soft. “But it didn’t work. I got control back. I put the knife down and then I didn’t know what to do. I can’t run from something that lives in my head.”

“Jesus,” Mark breathed.

Jack sighed. “After that, he calmed down. I guess he realized he couldn’t really kill me after all. We started talking, like you said you and yours did, and I guess he’s okay. He’s fucking nuts, though.”

Mark laughed. It wasn’t funny, but he laughed anyway. Nothing else to do, except maybe scream.

“This is the weirdest shit,” he said, and Jack laughed too.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. 

Mark put on his blinker to pull into the parking lot of Jack’s hotel. They lapsed into silence once more as he put the car in park. Mark sat there for a moment, trying to think of the right way to phrase his question, but Jack beat him to it.

“Have you felt weird all day?” he asked. “Like, shaky and shit.”

“So much,” Mark replied.

“It’s like I can’t even function properly.”

Mark opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off by a sudden rush of cold tingling down his spine. Something like a headache settled at the base of his skull, painful and familiar. He choked on the taste of copper.

“Anti’s back,” Jack said, voice tight.

Mark coughed and tried to swallow back the taste of phantom blood. “Dark too.”

 _“Get to a mirror,”_ Dark ordered, urgent. Mark scrambled to get out of the car without a thought. There was the slightest tingle at the base of his spine that whispered that, just maybe, it wasn’t entirely by his own volition.

“Second floor, third room on the left,” Jack said, hurrying to the hotel’s side door. He fumbled for the room key with shaky fingers, and when Mark looked at his eyes one of them was the same bright green as the demon in his reflection, radioactive and sick.

Finally Jack got the door open and the two of them sprinted up the stairs. Dark’s urgency did not let up even when Jack rushed to open the door to his room, and only lessened when Jack threw open the door to the bathroom and flipped on the light.

Mark gaped at their reflections. Dark’s tie was undone, hair askew, fresh bruises decorating the left side of his face. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth. His breathing was labored and he clutched at his side like something hurt. Perhaps most unsettling of all was the grin plastered across his face, predatory and self-satisfied despite the damage.

Anti was no better. His shirt was ripped in several places and damp around the collar from the gash on his neck, which was bleeding freely. One of his plugs was missing but he either hadn’t noticed or simply didn’t care. He too was smiling ear to ear, revealing dangerously pointed teeth.

“What the hell happened to you?” Mark asked.

Dark laughed, and Mark tried to suppress an involuntary shiver. “We happened.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Jack demanded. 

Anti leaned forward, far enough that Mark worried for a split second that he would reach through the mirror and grab them. 

“Jackaboy,” he said around that eternal, horrible grin. “Jack, do I have a soul?”

“What?” Jack blinked, confused. 

“I must have a soul,” Anti declared, “because I found my soulmate.”

Dark smacked him on the back of the head, frowning. Anti’s grin got impossibly wider and he turned to Dark with wide eyes. Mark watched in sheer horror as Anti grabbed two fistfuls of Dark’s wrinkled suit jacket and dragged him in for a crushing, sloppy kiss.

“What the fuck!” Mark shrieked, because _what the fuck._

Dark pushed Anti away and wiped a hand over his mouth. He settled a glare on the other with an intensity that Mark was sure would be enough to convince Anti to settle down, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Anti’s form glitched erratically and he reached up to fist a hand in Dark’s hair, pulling harshly. Dark made a noise that could only be described as a growl somewhere deep in his throat.

“I’ll see to this,” Dark said, and then they were gone, leaving only a ringing silence and the lightly panicked breathing of two humans who really needed a stiff drink and ten hours of sleep, respectively.

“Did the demons in our heads fuck each other,” Jack muttered, staring blankly at his reflection. The reflection stared blankly back, unanimated and flat. 

Mark took a deep breath and held it for a moment before answering. “I think so, yeah.”

“I need a drink,” Jack said.

“I need a nap,” Mark replied.

They did just that.


End file.
